“Our quiet diplomacy, we are confident with it. We are going to continue with it, ” said Zuma.
“The manner in which some people acted made our work very difficult. They were busy putting [in] an opposition as if it were a baby of some other country – and the Zimbabwean would tell us about that,” Zuma said in what appears to be a reference to behind-the-scenes work by British officials in that country.
Zuma insisted that South Africa’s efforts to resolve the crisis in Zimbabwe had achieved more than those of any other country, including countries that applied sanctions.
He said there would be “no problem working with Mbeki, who remains president of the country until 2009.
 Displaying conciliatory gestures similar to those adopted toward Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi during bitter fighting between Buthelezi’s IFP party and the ANC in the early 90s, Zuma said , “Mbeki is a leader of the ANC. He is one of the comrades who has capacity that the ANC needs.”
Zuma said Mbeki would become an ex-officio member of the national executive committee – as former president Nelson Mandela had when he stood down in 1997.
Zuma said he would be meeting Mbeki to work out how they would co-operate, but would not pre-empt the discussion by speaking about it now. Asked how the ANC would deal with the unprecedented indiscipline at the conference, he said he could not anticipate the decisions of the national executive of the ANC.
 Zuma tried to play down the divisions within the ANC which came to a head in the succession struggle.
“All of us are very clear that, as we move from here, we are one family, united. There is no doubt about that. We were never two-in-one, we were always one, but you guys [the media] have been insisting on telling us who we are.”
Zuma did concede that the succession struggle had been a lesson for the ANC.Â
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